


A Queen's Hound And Shadow

by Cinnamon_Girl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, F/M, Manipulation, Maul is lovestruck, Padmé works with the Sith, Palpatine doesn't know what he signed up for, Sith rituals, Unholy Trinity AU, also bang them, not necessarily in that order, power couples
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:50:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamon_Girl/pseuds/Cinnamon_Girl
Summary: AU : Padmé secretly join the Sith cause as Palpatine's protégé and a certain zabrak assassin assume his status of both apprentice and bodyguard.aka the result of lengthy discussions between me and watson-sighs-and-tuts on tumblr. Don't expect actual continuity.





	1. Tongue-Tied Beast.

"We are close."

Her idling didn’t go unnoticed, it never did.

Maul was putting his saber to his belt as she was sitting by the window, arms crossed over her barely covered chest.

(This he noticed, like the red of her lips, like the gold in her hair, like her lost gaze.)

"So close…" she sighed, and side-eyed him. "This may be your last mission."  
"I… Doubt it." he muttered back. She made him understood that he could speak in her presence. Still, he dared not raise his voice.

"Of course you do. But…"

Her steps towards him were light, showing her almost surrealism in the way she barely made any sounds. Just the quiet flutter of silk against skin.  
Her hand came resting on his chest, where his left heart should be, and he willed himself stone-like, his warmth betraying him even through the thick layers of his robes.

"I didn’t mean it like that."

There was just the shortest glimpse of sharp teeth, before he averted his eyes, bright with determination.  
"I will not fail." he breathed out.  
"You will not ?"  
"No, my mistress."

Padmé’s lips parted when he referred to her as such. There was a clock ticking at the back of her head.

"Then you will come back to me…" she whispered, like a prayer, and her hand traveled to his shoulder.

He felt himself crackling against her when she kissed him, and it took every bit of his willpower not to push her away.  
But her teeth came splitting his own lips. Pain. Blood.

This was familiar, this he knew how to proceed with.

He devoured her back, grunting under her tongue, her fingers lost themselves in the folding of his clothes, and they parted.

She smiled, baring hemoglobin smeared mouth, high on his taste. He found air difficult to swallow.

She stepped back. "May you be victorious when you return."

He bowed with trembling shoulders, and left.


	2. Name game.

Her nails clicked along the metallic back of the chair as she circled the desk. Palpatine only paid attention late in her approach.

"He still holds me dear to his heart, you know." she sighed, leaning against his seat. "The boy, Skywalker."

 

He halted his writing to answer. "Does he ?" His chuckle gave the impression that he had heard a mildly amusing joke. "This could prove useful."

"As if you hadn’t noticed. You do everything to see him at any time."

(If he didn’t know her any better, he’d have thought her tone to be one of accusation.)

He set the datapad down. "And he, in return, does everything to see you."

  
(She smiled like he was flattering her, hidden laugh showing in the way she bared her teeth between wound colored lips.)

"He entertains me." she confessed, and there was a mischievous glint to her gaze. "And as much as his sentiments tire me sometimes, even I can tell : the Force is strong with him."

He leaned back with a smirk, looking at her.

"So, you do see why–"

"Are you still thinking about replacing _him_ ?"

 

Here, this was her seeking the Sith, luring Sidious out of the politician. For there always was an unmistakable edge to her voice, when she was talking about Maul, that made electricity running up his veins.

 

" _Maul_ (The name had gained power even in his mouth.) has proved himself to be a more than valuable asset. But rallying Skywalker to our cause-…"

"Anakin will not be drawn away easily."

" _Anakin_ ?"

 

There.  
She blinked. He stood triumphant.

 

"No longer just _Skywalker_ , my Queen ?" he taunted. She took a step back.

"He is powerful…" Still, the smile never left her as he was closing in. "Perhaps…"

 

The eyes flashed a sudden yellow. _Do not…_

She raised her head high.

 

"Maybe will he even grow stronger than _you_."

 

His hands were claws when he grasped her face between them, holding her inches away from him. A warning.

 

She was the one to close a fist into his robes and bring him down on her lips.

 

She felt a growl rise from his throat to roll onto her tongue and let go.

When she opened her eyes, his pupils were glowing, radioactive. This time, she laughed openly.

 

"Sith animal…" she hissed, like the most delightful of curses, and stepped away. "Maul is more than we need."

 

His fingers tried to catch her when she slipped past him, she let him watch the curve of her back as she left.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's be honest, it's gonna be a lot of Palpatine/Padmé in there, you've been warned.


	3. Rise of the Sith'Ari.

Padmé never asked what he was doing, in the secrecy of his apartment’s depths.

Perhaps, she had never felt bold enough, never dared, maybe she was giving herself time. Maybe he was. And yet she still asked, one day.

« Show me. » she said, in a hushed breath, like one would ask a lover for intimacy, his hand was already on hers as if he knew what was on her mind. (He always did.)

« Perhaps… » Protecting. _No._ Hiding, teasing. « You could assist me. »

He had always demanded her to be by his side. Never in front, never behind, just right where he could seize her at any given moment, where she could let him.

One step at a time, her body descended on its own the stairs darkening into this unknown that still smelled like him.

She found him unfolding, hurried to grip his expensive, stark red robes, he let her with a smile.  
A warning. _You could never go back, even if you wanted to._

( _You don’t._ )

  
She unpeeled the politician, stripped him away from Palpatine, from Sheev, from Naboo. She gave him fabric blacker than night and he fit into it like a narglatch's teeth into soft prey.

The hood casted a shadow that gave his face a shape she didn’t recognize, but his hands were still the same, long-fingered and clean, even when he gave her the blade to cut into the skin.

« Tear the palm, let it flow. » he whispered, and it wasn’t even his voice.

She did it, still.

The knife licked his flesh open, making crimson drip into a vessel that awaited underneath, swirling with glowing smoke water. (The lakes of her home -of their world- were never brighter. Still she found them even in the red clouds settling within.)

Then he told her to back down.

She wasn’t sure she knew the man standing there, that never as much as flinch under the sharpness of a blade, and so she obeyed.  
She was keeping her eyes open from a safe corner when he raised his arms.

Something changed when he started whispering, because she didn’t know the language he was talking in, she wasn’t even sure it was one to begin with. It seemed… Ancient. It sounded like danger on his tongue.

(She shivered. She liked it.)

She saw his hands, the exquisite, powerful hands dive empty into the water, but coming up filled with something soaked in thick blood, still beating.  
Yet too deformed for a heart. Still, he inhaled and bit into it with a rage she could never associate with him.

In that instant, there was something about him throwing his head back to swallow, mouth and chin glistening scarlet all the way to his neck, that lured her out.

(The hood had slipped back a little, and so she saw the gold in his eyes for the first time.)

Entranced as he was, she drifted towards him like a moth to a flame, but he didn’t seem to notice her.

The vapors of the water veiled his mind with a cloud of unholy disassociation, and this time he shouted.

And the room cracked open, with him in the middle.

She saw him first (always, always) : an amalgam of shadows at the center of what felt like an earthquake. Yet she still stayed where she stood, as if rooted in place by his own gravity.  
Arms raised like wings of destruction, spitting curses as lightning grew from his core, spreading alight branches upon his frame to strike the air charged with an energy that made everything turn.

His head, his eyes, the room, the planet itself, the galaxy…

All spinning, blurring into one, and he was the source and still she remained : stricken with horror, gaping with fascination.

The very oxygen she breathed was drenched in him, impregnated with his taste, omnipresent, _insidious._

She filled herself with him and only him, she panted with the sheer wholeness she felt in that moment, at how far away yet close he seemed, how absolute, how endless, invincible.

He carried the weight of the universe with screaming lungs, blood stained hands, mouth and sparkling eyes, unwavering.  
Watching was like drowning, like choking on obscurity, smothered by his inner divinity. She welcomed it all.

The fire, the storm, death.

It was over as fast as it happened, with the stars folding into him, and she fell undone into his arms, embracing the carnivore in him.

(His eyes still gazed toxic in the aftermath, when he said in that voice she knew all too well :)

« Are you alright, my Queen? »

She wanted to laugh at him, at the irony.

Him! The most regal of the two, godlike in every way, still calling her _Queen_.  
She did laugh, but at the thrill she instantly felt.

The thrill of pure power.

This had never been about showing her, it was about putting himself on display.  
This was him, this was what he could do, what he had to offer.

This belonged to her now, as much as she belonged to him.

(She kissed away the blood of his lips, hand lost in his hair disheveled by the effort. He pulled her in.)

 

And for that, she was Empress before Queen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- this was greatly inspired by the Sithisis comics, I confess ! please please please do read it if you haven't, it's got the best Sith imagery ever and a great insight into Sidious' powers.  
> \- Padmé is probably getting more than she ever asked for, but there's nothing our fierce queen can't handle, let them rule !!!  
> \- (have ever I told you how much I love Sith rituals ? I do. I love Sith rituals. Save me.)


End file.
